Student Spotlight: Adriana Caraeni

Meet Adriana from Lebanon, New Hampshire. She is currently a junior pursuing dual majors in mathematics and computer science. 

Adriana is inspired by people’s ability to grow and improve. Two examples of this are her parents, Mirela and Doru. “Mirela is unbreakable and always moving forward, and Doru is intelligent and learns in order to understand and provide value wherever he goes,” she said.  

Majoring in both mathematics and computer science, Adriana has had her fair share of interesting courses. “Some of my favorite classes thus far have been Data Structures and Calculus,” she expressed. “I have really loved Jaime Davilla, Marc Liberatore, and Andrew Lan [all of the Manning College of Information & Computer Sciences, or CICS] during my time here. Also, thank you to [mathematics lecturer] Richard Buckman for caring for me and believing in my mathematical ability, and thank you [mathematics professor] Paul Hacking for teaching me linear algebra so well!”  

In addition to her professors and lecturers, Adriana has benefitted from several mentors who have helped guide her along the way, such as UMass alumna Jocelynn Harty, a software engineer at Arbor, and Alex Scarlatos, a UMass PhD candidate working with Andrew Lan in the Machine Learning for Education (ML4Ed) lab. 

Outside of her classes, Adriana was selected to participate in AI for the Commonwealth, a 16-week paid internship bringing together CICS undergraduate students, state institutions, and UMass mentors to “apply cutting-edge generative AI to solve real-world challenges for Massachusetts institutions and communities.” She is also an ARQ Fellow in the Minutemen Alternative Investment Fund and served as a project lead for MassAI. 

Adriana chose the College of Natural Sciences for several reasons: it’s a very good school with a reasonable cost; it's close enough to home, but not too close; and it’s well-ranked for computer science. “Mathematics at UMass has given me a strong foundation, and the teachers are caring and humble,” she said. “I am thankful to them for teaching me and believing in me.” 

As Adriana looks toward graduation, her career goals are to either go into quantitative investing, become an AI researcher, or join Big Tech.